


Another Lifetime

by pied_r_piper



Series: It Takes A Village [3]
Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: F/M, Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 07:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19246543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pied_r_piper/pseuds/pied_r_piper
Summary: I guess I'll wait another lifetimeMeet us in another lifetimeAnd there I will stay, my darling("Another Lifetime" by NAO)





	Another Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zoetekohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoetekohana/gifts).



> Fleeting moments from an old story that never quite got off the ground, told in fragments whose connections I leave to you to imagine.

* * *

**Tunnels**

* * *

 

“You’re pregnant.”

She doesn’t react right away, soft gaze trained on the textbook propped in her hands. “I also have an exam tomorrow.”

He pulls himself into the seat opposite her, the sound of the chair scraping against the tiled floor earning glares from the other library patrons. He ignores them. He can’t even see them. “How long have you known?”

She’s still immersed in her book, eyes reading the same line again and again. “A couple weeks.”

He feels the air grow heavy. “And how long has Jou known? Or Miyako? Ya—?”

“Stop. Please,” she whispers, knuckles white.

But Taichi can’t, unable to think clearly. Now he’s breathing hard, too, unfocused, chest constricting. And when he speaks, he doesn’t even recognize his own voice, its unnatural hoarseness, spiraling out into something he can’t grasp onto anymore. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t want you to do anything.”

“Mimi—,”

“I mean it, Taichi,” and the edge in her voice confirms it. “I figured it out, and I’ve decided what will happen—,” she breathes, gaze flickering, “—so there’s nothing for you to do.”

He’s shaking his head, “And if I want to do something?”

“Well, you don’t,” she says simply, speaking with conviction.

There is no hesitation: “That’s not true.”

She’s blinking quickly, lashes wet. “I don’t want you to.”

This time, the pause is emptier, hollow like the hole in his chest that grows wide and deep. “Mimi, if you would just let me go with you, I—,”

“You bring out the worst in me.” She puts the book down and looks at him clearly. It’s blunt, and brutal, and she knows what she’s doing. “We bring out the worst in each other, Taichi. Sometimes I think it’s all we’ve ever done.”

In the tunneling silence, he feels the room shift, and now she’s standing, study materials gathered in her hands, pausing at his chair.

“Go home. She’s probably wondering where you are.”

* * *

**Storms**

* * *

 

"She doesn’t want to see you, Taichi.”

He grabs another limb, fingers grasping the sturdy trunk and hoisting himself another few inches.

“Taichi, I mean it. She doesn’t want—will you stop? What if you fall?”

“Then—I—fall—,” and he swings himself up another branch, breathing heavily between words.

Sora steps back, frustrated, and fishes the mobile phone from her back pocket. The contact she needs is at the top of her recents, and her thumb hits the call button on reflex. She watches him struggle in his climb as the phone rings.

His voice is tired, and strained. “Do I have to know?”

“You should probably come down here.”

“Wanna switch?”

“Sure.”

She slides the phone back into her pocket, arms folded across her chest once more. “Taichi, seriously, come down.”

“Make—me—,” he yells back, and there’s a touch to her elbow before she can utter another snappy response.

Sora shakes her head at Yamato, who’s face is stitched into a neat, controlled frown. “All yours,” she welcomes.

“Same to you,” and he jerks his head in the direction of the apartment door, which he’d left open for her. He waits for Sora to stalk off, her disapproval leaking through every hurried step she takes, and fixes his cool blue eyes on the figure slowly moving up the tree in the yard.

The silence shifts in tone with his presence, and it does not go unnoticed. Pausing, Taichi tosses a look over his shoulder, peeking at the ground. He smirks, “Like the view, don’t you?”

“It’s going to rain,” says Yamato.

“Yeah, men—,” and he laughs, bellowing in a rumbling echo.

“We’re getting something like four or five—,”

“Lectures from you on weather patterns?”

“The storm will probably go on all night.”

“I heard you can, too.” Taichi holds still, smiling to himself. He looks up through the branches at the window on the third floor, its curtains drawn. “Storms pass, don’t they?” he asks.

“Always do.” And then, in a tone much softer than either can remember using with one another in far too long, “Come down. Please.”

But he only shakes his head. “Will you catch me?”

“Absolutely not.”

Taichi takes a deep breath, “Too late, here I come.”

The panic shakes him out of his temperament like no one else. “No, I said, don’t—!”

* * *

**Names**

* * *

 

“Hirofumi.”

“No.”

“Yuu.”

“Mm-mm.”

“Nobu.”

“No.”

“Masaru.”

“No.”

“Kouki.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Taichi.”

He thinks carefully, and then: “…No.”

It’s a miracle she doesn’t kick him in his stupid, handsome, stupid face.

Instead, she grits her teeth and says, attempting calm, “No, Taichi, I’m calling you.”

“Oh.” He looks up, seated cross-legged on the floor before her, with tattered plaid lounge pants and bed hair. She’s barefoot on the couch above him, one ankle resting on his knee. One of his hands cups the heel as the other balances a small nail polish brush, loaded with a thin coat of green gel. “What?”

“We’ve been through three pages and you keep saying ‘no’,” Mimi sighs, irritated. “You haven’t liked any of these names.”

“You asked for my opinion.”

“Just saying ‘no’ does not make an opinion. You need a reason.”

“You’re the one with the list,” he points out, returning his focus to her toes.

But she’s figured out his avoidance issues by now, and she won’t let it go. Persistent, she prods further, “Right, so that means I’ve vetted this list to the top contenders. You should at least have the courtesy to think about each one a little more.”

The revelation makes him pause, uneasy. His brow arches, “Vetted them how?”

Mimi taps her pencil to the paper pad, moving through each numbered name with matter-of-fact exactness. “Hirofumi was my volleyball coach in junior high school; Yuu lived next door to me in elementary school; Nobu was my partner in chemistry lab and basically saved my entire grade; Masaru was my favorite TA; Kouki was my first—,”

His grip tightens on her ankle. “Your first what?”

This time she does give a little kick, but his hold is too strong and his scowl now seemingly etched into his face, dark brown eyes narrowed to a point.

She shakes her head, lips pursed. “The first friend I made after I changed schools when my parents moved. Okay?”

None of this particularly comforts him. “I’m not going to have you thinking about another guy whenever you call my son’s name.”

“I mean, technically I will be.”

He takes the nail polish brush and paints a large green line over the top of her foot. The liquid runs cold, and she shrieks, instinctively yanking her leg away. He ducks just in time, sliding back.

“You’re so mean to me!”

“You’re the one picking names after all these other men!” he shoots back.

“Yes, because they had good traits and treated people kindly and are perfect role models! I’m not just picking out people at random!” She chucks her pencil at him and grabs a tissue from the box on the coffee table, furiously rubbing at the wet polish. “Honestly, you wouldn’t be so dumb about this if I’d picked something after your father, or mine.”

“Yes, I would,” he says, stubborn, somehow even more distressed now.

“Oh, really?” She prattles off another list, “So I guess you’d also hate Keishi, or Keita, or Keitaro, or—,” and she stops.

Taichi’s looking at back at her, his face blank. His mouth starts to curl up, almost on instinct. The smile is slow to grow, but it’s there, and it’s real.

“Keitaro,” he repeats, voice so low she almost doesn’t hear him.

“Keitaro,” she echos just as quietly, hesitant, rolling the sounds over her tongue.

It’s a pleasant feeling, something smooth, and small, and soft. And theirs.

 

* * *

**Blood**

* * *

 

“He’s gorgeous,” says Hikari, in awe.

Taichi grins up at her. He’s seated cross-legged against the wall, son in his arms. “Do you want to hold him?”

She looks startled, still standing at the entrance to the room, only just barely catching her breath from the sprint through the hospital corridors. “Now?”

“You’ll have to get used to it,” he says, chuckling at her reaction. “No matter what Sora or Miyako try to say, you’re his aunt.”

She breaks out a small smile, looking nervous and tense.

So Taichi tells her, his tone reassuring, “Come over here,” and Hikari obeys, cautious.

The infant stirs only a little as he is moved, face pink and blotchy, but only turns his head in deep sleep. Taichi carefully readjusts his tiny wool hat as Hikari sits absolutely still next to her brother, careful not to move. She stares at her nephew’s pudgy little fingers, his button nose, his thin cowlick of brown hair peeking out from under the cap.

“Wow,” she whispers to him, “look at you.” She touches the tip of her forefinger to his soft skin, gently brushing the wisps of hair aside. She glances up, her eyes searching Taichi’s face, struggling to contain her own surge of emotions in the moment. “Look at you.”

“Made something good, didn’t I?”

Hikari’s laugh is breathless, her eyes tearing in spite of herself. “You have a son. Taichi, you’re someone’s father.”

He nods, smiling, gaze lowered, staring at the small bundle. “Guess so.”

“Does it feel weird?”

His smirk is earnest, teeth tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’m scared as hell, if that’s what you’re asking.”

And before she has a chance to think of something to say, to try to be comforting to him, too, to do what a sister might at a time like this, he’s sinking down to rest his forehead on her shoulder, eyes still trained on the sleeping infant in her arms.

So now Hikari’s trying to stay still for the both of them, turning her chin just ever so slightly so her cheek can press to Taichi’s head and her thumb can trace the soft skin of her nephew’s ear.

* * *

**Hair**

* * *

 

“Found it!” and there’s a frantic pattering of feet on paneled floors as Miyako tears back into the bedroom. She drops to her knees beside them, holding out her eyebrow pencil in triumph. “Here, use this.”

“I don’t think it’s my shade,” says Takeru.

Daisuke snatches the pencil from her, ignoring the other’s sarcastic remarks, and turns to the playpen again. “Someone hold him steady; seriously, this kid can never stay still.”

Miyako scoops the boy in her arms, letting him gurgle over her shoulder as she cradles him close to her chest. She shifts around so that her back is towards the other two, and Daisuke uncaps the eyebrow pencil. “Okay, ready,” she says, exerting a confidence at a level entirely too high to be foolproof.

“Hold still,” says Daisuke again, and he leans forward, taking the infant’s chin with his other hand and deftly plotting a thin line across the middle of the child’s forehead. He sits back. “How’s that?”

“You gave him…a unibrow,” says Takeru, stomach dropping.

“He didn’t always have one?”

The man shakes his head, mute in disbelief.

“I mean, whatever, it will grow back, right? They both have great genes in that department. Maybe together they’ve birthed an untamed beast?”

“Are you comparing baby Kei to a yeti?”

“His hair is ridiculous, look at it! We only trimmed off a bit around his ears and I swear it’s already come back!”

Takeru peers closely at his tiny, round face. “Maybe we can comb down the bangs a little, cover up the forehead.”

“Give it a try then,” says Miyako as the baby continues to squirm, “and hurry up!”

Daisuke pats at the tuft of hair and tries again rubbing his thumb over the edges of the line, to give a little more arch to the shape. “Better?”

The horror is contagious, and Takeru doesn’t know whether to laugh, or laugh harder. “Now he just looks permanently surprised.”

“Fine, you do it,” and he shoves the pencil into Takeru’s hands, reeling back on his heels, ready to wash his hands of the whole affair.

“You’re the one who thought he needed a haircut!” he protests, trying to hand the pencil back, but Daisuke’s too fast.

“And you’re the one who couldn’t hold him steady!”

“Miyako’s the one who found the electric razor!”

“Because who would let either of you bring scissors near a child?” she cries, refusing the blame.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Daisuke insists, voice rising, lost in panicked denial. “Kids don’t need eyebrows. No one needs eyebrows. They’re just luxury accessories for the face. Totally useless.”

Takeru opens his mouth to retort, then freezes, blue eyes wide. “Is that the front door?”

Daisuke swears under his breath. “I’m out of here.”

The other man jumps to his feet as well, and Miyako’s breathing is uneven and uncontrolled. “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God—,”

“Move, move, move!” Daisuke hisses, grabbing the sleeve of her jacket to drag her out of the room with them, and Takeru’s whisper-yelling at them, “No, not with baby Kei! We can’t be kidnappers, too!” and Miyako stumbles back to the playpen, fumbling as she lowers the giggling child back down on his soft play mat, smoothing his thick hair down over his forehead before crying in dismay, “Oh, my God—it’s the wrong shade!”

They freeze.

“Back!” Mimi is still wearing her thick winter coat, pulling the gloves off her hands, while Taichi slowly lags behind her, carrying leftovers from the restaurant in a white takeout box, already digging through the contents to pick away at the cold food. She smiles, “I assume by the looks on your faces that he was fussy all evening?”

The silence goes too long, and everyone notices.

“What?” asks Mimi, looking between the trio of blank faces staring back at them. “Why are you just standing there like that?”

Taichi lowers the box a little, staring at each of them with withering bemusement. Mouth full, he mumbles out, “He is here, right? Did you sell him or something?”

And before the joke can register, the others break their positions, their frenzied actions catching the bewildered couple off guard.

“I officially waive my babysitter rights,” announces Daisuke, shoving past Taichi and nearly knocking Mimi off her feet in his dash.

“Me, too,” stammers Miyako, tunneling after him.

“I honestly never wanted any,” says Takeru, diving to freedom as Keitaro, rolling about on his mat and plucking at his freshly trimmed hair, babbles playfully in his crib.

* * *

**Bed**

* * *

 

“That’s gross,” declares a young voice, peeking around the doorway of the living room.

Breaking away, Mimi tilts her chin, glancing at the cowering figure of her son sulking at the entrance, dressed in pink and green dotted pajamas.

“Bedtime, Kei,” reminds Taichi, distracted, but the child does not heed.

Mimi puts a hand to Taichi’s chest, pushing him up, but he only shifts his position a little, raising himself on his arms, his palms to either side of her as she curls up beneath him. Mimi stretches to her elbows, ignoring Taichi’s murmured protest when she turns to her side, away from him.

“What’s gross?” she asks after the boy still won’t budge. She stays conversational, cheeks flushed, taking a moment to breathe deeply after the interruption.

“You.”

“Me and Daddy are gross?”

“’Cause you and Daddy kiss a lot.”

She’s taken aback, only slightly, and the boy pauses, rocking back on his heels, “Teacher says so.”

Her voice is soft and kind, despite the late hour and her own languid exhaustion after a long day. “You can tell your teacher that’s because I like Daddy,” she explains.

Keitaro’s brows furrow in deep thought. “More than me?”

Mimi laughs, promising, “No, baby, never more than you.”

“Always?”

“Always and forever.”

He brightens, shyly, and Mimi wrinkles her nose at him, scrunching her face and pulling air into her cheeks so they puff like a blowfish. He mirrors her, in this ritual game that’s always been just theirs, sucking in his breath, and then doubles over, clutching his stomach as his small body shakes in laughter. Giggling, she sends him off with a promise to tuck him in again, and he scampers back upstairs.

Mimi’s shaking her head with a chuckle, sitting up and pulling her hair from her shoulders to wrap in a loose bun. She stifles another yawn, stretching her arms and rolling her neck, eyes closed. “Can you fill the dog’s water bowl and make sure the lunches are labeled and check the lock on the front door before you come up?” she asks, running through the tasks for the next day in her head, thinking of the warm, big bed that awaits her, dreaming about that glorious moment when her tired body sinks into the mattress at last.

Only silence answers her, not the snarky comment about how she always makes her requests commands in practice, not the teasing peck to her chin when he inevitably acquiesces, not the promise to join her under the sheets and finish what he’d started on the couch. Just silence, and a heavy one, too.

Curious, she opens her eyes to see that he’s left the sofa already, sulking at the entrance to the living room, in a slouch all too exact to not be genetic. Before she can stop him, he’s calling up the stairs, “You know, I don’t have to like your mother. We’re all lucky I still do—you tell your teacher that.”

There’s a smack to the back of his knee, and he yelps, jumping away, craning his neck to see Mimi’s eyes flashing and her face like stone, the change in her temperament like lightening. He rubs his leg. “There’re a lot of kids out there from broken homes, you know. He is lucky.”

“You’re so jealous of a four-year-old that you want to add to the statistic?”

“What have I got to be jealous of? Go ahead and like him more.” He purses his lips, turning to stalk up the staircase, muttering, “The real statistic is how many households fall prey to the tyranny of the toddler every year.” He pauses, throwing down another retort at her this time, “I hope you know you’re raising a real dictator.”

She’s sucking on her teeth, eyes narrowed. “I think I’m sleeping with one, too.”

“Not tonight.”

“Seriously?”

She stops following him at the door to the bedroom, watching him flounce on top of the mattress, still fully clothed in his long-sleeved pullover and faded college sweatpants, and kick off his slippers with all the dramatics he can get away with at his age. He spreads himself out, arms and legs splayed like a starfish, so that he’s sufficiently claimed every inch of space as his own. “Yep.”

“You see nothing ludicrous about your behavior?”

“Nope.” And he wills away in denial with his eyes screwed shut and his mouth a thin, pouting line, face turned from her. “You know he won’t sleep until you tuck him in.”

It’s true, and only for its truth does she go through with it, finding Keitaro rolled up in a small ball under superhero sheets and plush toys. She smooths back his thick unruly brown curls, kisses his sweet soft dimples, and promises to love him just as much as the man who gave him to her.

“Always?” yawns the boy.

“Always and forever,” and she nuzzles his cheek to hers, turning off the light and shutting the door.

One down, one to go.

With a deep and resigned sigh, she peels off her t-shirt and drops it on the floor just past the bedroom entrance, leaving a trail of clothing as she wiggles out of the tank-top underneath, and steps from her lounge shorts, and unclasps the sports bra, and slips off her panties. He sees none of this from how he lays face down on the pillow, instead ready to mumble another grumpy protest when he feels her hands slide over his shoulder, and her lips brush the nape of his neck, and her breath tickle his ear. He flinches on instinct, suppressing the laugh that wants to follow from the teasing gesture, trying to remain stubbornly petulant, and rolls over on his side to retort, “I told you, you can’t sle—,” before stopping, breathless at the sight of her.

She pulls the covers over them, sliding between his legs, “Shut up, and let me tuck the stupid big baby in.”

* * *

 

**Games**

* * *

 

“Mimi. Seriously?”

Ruffled, she scrunches her face and tosses him a warning glare over the top of the booth. The wooden structure sways timidly as a gentle breeze flutters past, and her glance at the flimsy architecture betrays her assumed confidence.

He steps forward and steadies the wobbly signboard above her, his frown deepening as he rereads the painted scrawl.

“Of course, you would put him at the kissing booth,” he mutters more to himself, but her ears are trained to just the right frequency to catch it.

She straightens in her chair, holding a fistful of unsorted carnival tickets as proof. “At least he’s good at it.”

“You really want to brag about that?”

“That my child is popular, charismatic, and generous?”

His voice is flat: “It’s an elementary school festival.”

She shakes the stubs again. “It’s the most tickets sold. Besides, someone had to take this booth, and it’s all for charity anyway. I’m being a good sport.”

His brow twitches. “…Most?”

And she ought to have mocked his predictable fixation on that word of all words, but it hits close to home for her, too.

“Well,” she relents, lips pursed, “almost. The water gun booth is our closest competitor.”

They look across the small school yard to the makeshift booth built at the opposite corner to hers, where a swarm of young pupils have gathered animatedly around a line of four players shooting water at wiggling targets.

He twitches again. “I could take them.”

“It’s an elementary school festival.”

“So?”

She rolls her eyes. “So you’re going to have to knock your competitive instincts down about twenty notches, or else it won’t be fair.”

He’s in disbelief. “What’s the point in being an adult if you can’t play unfairly?”

“Taichi!”

“I wasn’t going to go over there!” he protests. Then he pouts, “I’ll just stay here and be a loser with you.”

“He’s not losing because of me,” she says at once, offended by the insinuation, and, to prove it, tosses her glowing locks over her shoulder, shimmering gloss puckering on full lips. He’s about ready to remind her that there are children present, but the way she crosses her long legs so the summer dress becomes sheer in the trick of the sunlight arrests the remark in the back of his throat.

“It’s an elementary school festival,” he says thickly, with great regret, and hands her the water bottle he’d picked up at the entrance moments earlier.

She takes neither the water nor the subtext, lost to the effect she still has on him. “Exactly. We’re targeting the wrong demographic.”

His exasperation keeps him silent, and she leans forward, craning her neck this and that way to scope out the other parents and teachers mingling through the festival grounds.

“What do you think, charge them double tickets? I could probably get…I don’t know, maybe twelve or sixteen by the time Kei’s back from the restroom, right?”

“Such ego.” He’s shaking his head, leaving the water bottle on the booth table. “Whatever happened to playing fairly?”

“You said yourself that didn’t apply to adults.”

“I didn’t realize I was so persuasive.”

“Hm,” she snorts, eyes narrowing in their continued scan of the crowd. “You have your moments.”

“Convincing you to not let him sit at the kissing booth clearly wasn’t one of them.”

She frowns, crossing her arms. “I told you: he’s adorable. It was a sure thing.”

“Says the mother holding the second place number of tickets sold.”

It’s a low blow, but she’s come prepared. “Says the father who let him come in fourteenth out of fourteen last year.”

“Those ring tosses were rigged and you know it.”

“What I know,” and she clears her throat, smirking at the way his nostrils flare, “is that my son is not going to come home with anything less than a top three contenders’ award.”

“So,” he pauses to let his hands flat on the booth and leans across the tabletop towards her, as she shifts in her chair and refuses to back down, “he’s your son when he’s winning, and he’s my son when he’s not?”

“Like mother, like son.”

“Except I won you,” he says.

Her eyes sharpen, and her mouth curls. “Not yet.”

“Two tickets?”

“Mm-hm,” and she reaches for him, pushing up to meet his kiss halfway.

But he stops her, finger to her bottom lip, and tilts his head, nose wrinkled. “Too bad. I cost at least triple that.”

“Such ego.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Keitaro is a name some of you might recognize; I chose it, way back when, in honor of Tachikawa Keisuke, who’s a lot like my dad, embarrassingly enough, and also because I like to imagine Mimi would insist on honoring him, too.


End file.
